A little over a year ago, I pulled up stakes from my Jacksonville, Florida residence and made my new home in Houston, Texas. I arrived on April Fool’s Day 2011, which seemed appropriate since I resigned my previous job on the hope (and sheer will) that I could find another one that was as close to or better than the one I had in Jax. I was setting out on a new adventure into a new land, but I was also scared to death taking so many chances at once.

Within two months, I had that new job (whew!) and I’ll have been at that job for an entire year right around May 25th. That was the same day that, after spending half a day either looking for work, filling out applications, or interviewing, I was spending the other half putting in place the elements to officially launch my writing career. Sure, I’ve been writing critiques for almost fifteen years now, but most of that was honing my written “voice” while learning to break down plots and characters that would fuel my own stories. “The Spooky Chronicles: The Crooked Man” went live on Smashwords that day.

Of course, the real reason for all the life changes was to move in with my girlfriend (who became my fiancée on Christmas Eve of 2011). That’s three fairly significant life changes all for one year’s time, and each one has been hard work but wonderful nonetheless. This year, I launched my third and fourth Spooky Chronicles book, am revamping my MovieCrypt.com movie review website to take it up another notch, started bicycling again, worked my way up into a better paying position at my day job (right back up to about the same as the old job I left), and have been co-planning a wedding. We even found the perfect hotel for our honeymoon already.

Sigh. I don’t think I could be much busier or much happier right now.

Okay, back to work…!